Apple responsible for creating 500 000 jobs in the United States?

Apple has published the results of a study which looks at the economic impact of employment in the United States. The company has stated that they are behind the direct and indirect creation of more than 500 000 jobs in the USA, and around 700 000 for the rest of the world. These figures should be taken with a grain of salt.

Apple has confirmed their status as the world’s largest company, now worth more than 500 billion dollars, but the company "only" employs 47 000 people in the United Sates (70 000 globally), a figure that is a long way behind other groups in the same field and equivalently sized companies based on stock market valuation.

This extreme concentration of wealth is regularly under attack as Apple doesn’t follow the classic business model of redistributing their value in the form of jobs creation.

With the economic crisis threatening, and the Presidential elections scheduled for late this year, this can be poorly viewed upon, especially considering other companies like Intel communicate their jobs creation policies in the United States a whole lot better.


An enormous impact

Apple has therefore published the results of a study conducted by Analysis Group which states that Apple is behind the creation of more than 500 000 direct and indirect jobs in North America, and around 700 000 for the rest of the world.

Of the 514 000 jobs Apple claims to be responsible for in North America, 304 000 are linked to engineering, manufacturing and logistics, while 210 000 are based on the iOS applications ecosystem. These are impressive figures, but whether they are true or not are difficult to verify.


Figures which can be manipulated
Some economists contest the results of indirect jobs creation as it allows companies to inflate their figures, while the working conditions of some employees at these companies is often abusive. This means that with or without Apple, these jobs would still exist but for other clients, making it impossible to attribute them to a single company.

The study also takes into account the employees of other companies who work with Apple on certain components or services. Samsung’s employees, who provide application processors and other elements to Apple’s mobile products, are included in Apple’s figures.

The figures that have been put forward by Apple should therefore be taken with a grain of salt, making Apple’s impact on the jobs market considerably less than what they are stating in this study.